The present invention relates to vending machines for supplying hot, cooked food. Vending machines for dispensing hot foods include a refrigerated storage compartment for uncooked, or at least partially cooked, food in individual containers, an oven, which for speed in heating usually is of the microwave type, means for retrieving containers of selected foods from the refrigerated storage compartment, placing them in the oven, removing them from the oven when cooked or reheated and dispensing the cooked or reheated meals, still in the containers. Usually, there is included also means for dispensing condiments appropriate to any selected meal. The present invention relates specifically to a mechanism for inserting the containers of food into the oven of a hot food vending machine, retrieving hot cooked food therefrom and presenting it for dispensation to a purchaser.
Specifications EP O 437 344, EP O 592 255 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,210,387 disclose hot food vending machines in which portions of food are held in plastic containers and sleeves which are stored in stacks in a refrigerated compartment from the top of which a selected container is removed vertically via a hole in a selector plate. The selected food container is placed on a conveyor and transported to a loading station at which the container is loaded into an oven by means of a ram which passes through the sleeve and is then withdrawn. After the food cooking cycle has been completed, the hot food container is withdrawn from the oven by a rake which also causes the food container to re-enter the sleeve before being conveyed to a dispensing station.
Not only is the arrangement described complicated mechanically in that the food withdrawal rake is mounted above the food loading ram and has to be moved in and out of its operative position at the appropriate moments of a food cooking cycle, but the cardboard sleeve can distort during the cooking phase so that the food container does not enter the sleeve readily after the removal of the food container from the oven, which can lead to an operational failure of the vending machine.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved food container handling system for use in a hot food vending machine.
According to the present invention there is provided a food container handling system for use in a hot food vending machine, comprising a ram adapted to pass through a sleeve enclosing a food container so as to remove the food container from the sleeve and load the food container into an oven forming part of the hot food vending machine and means for withdrawing the food container from the oven at the end of a cooking cycle and inserting the hot food container back into the sleeve, wherein there is included means for preventing distortion of the sleeve during the cooking cycle so as to facilitate the insertion of the hot food container into the sleeve at the end of the cooking cycle.
The means for preventing the distortion of the sleeve during the cooking cycle may be a front wall of the ram itself, the drive system of the ram being adapted to ensure that the said wall of the ram remains inside the sleeve during the cooking cycle. The ram may include vertical side walls. Alternatively, the sleeve may be held in a former during the oven loading, cooking an re-insertion phases of the vending operation.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the food container has a flange around its upper perimeter so as to leave two longitudinal passages between the sleeve and the side walls of the food container, and the means for withdrawing the food container from the oven and inserting it into the sleeve comprises two L-shaped arms which project from the leading edge of the ram and are adapted to pass initially through the said longitudinal passages between the sleeve and the hot food container as the ram moves forward to load the food container in the oven, is retracted to a waiting position and then moved forward to retrieve the hot food container from the oven, there being included means for rotating the arms to engage behind the hot food container and withdraw it from the oven and into the sleeve upon a further rearward motion of the ram.